NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1941, Page 10

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

TROUBLE IN IRAK

FOMENTED BY NAZIS

ATTACK ON BRITISH

In the vast chess-board of this extraordinary war Irak, prominently in the news today, is a key position in more senses than one. It contains the famous oilfield of Mosul in the north, with its pipelines to the Mediterranean at Haifa in Palestine (British Mandate) and Tripoli in Syria (French Mandate). The French prong of the forked - pipes has been temporarily , closed. For its oil alone Irak is an obvious objective for Hitler, who needs oil above anything else. Irak is also on the direct route from Europe to the Persian Gulf, and so to the oil- : fields of Iran (Persia) . and, beyond, India. The trouble that has arisen in Irak through the hostility of the usurping Premier, Rashid Aly, to the British, culminating in an attack on the aerocfrome at Habbania, 60 miles west of Bagdad, is directly due to Nazi machinations. Irak-Iran Oilfields. The oilfields in : the Irak-Iran' arei stretch roughly north-west to southeast,1 from Mosul in Irak through Kirkuk' to Kermanshah, on the Iran border, and Shuster further to the south-east, in Iran, not far from the head of the Persian Gulf at Bandar Shahpur in Iran, and Basra in Irak. Between Kermanshah and - Shuster there, is a gap in # which no oilfields are marked, but a constant search for oil has been carried on there for the last few years by the different companies interested. The Peace Treaty after the last war, wtuqh brought |L Irak , into existence, first as a mandated State under British suzerainty, and then as an -independent State, with special relations with Britainv under the AngloIraki Treaty, gave Britain no monopoly of the oil, which. was divided, under international arrangement. The unexplored field in the region of Basra : became a sort of Tom .Tiddler's ground for various national concerns seeking oil.: It was in this area that the * Nazi agent who seems to have been responsible more than anybody else for the Iraki coup d'etat • and Rashid Aly's seizure of power csme first into the public eye some five or six" years ago. In July, \ 1937, an American paper's Bagdad: cbrrespondent reported explorations of the Basra area for «^il by various companies, including the British Oil Development Co., a subsidiary of the Irak Petroleum Co., in which f the world's largest oil producers were concerned, the Seaboard Oil Company, an American firm, was. also in the field. So also were the-.Germans. It was stated in the report that Dr. Fritz Grobba, Minister;. of the Third Reich at Bagdad, had consulted the Irak. Minister of ..Commerce at iha time, Mr. Kainil Chadurchi,: en the subject, and that German ; engineers had been "quietly making investigations on the spot." ; It was added then that German influence was increasing. ■ .'•■■'■■. ■ : •." "■''."■■."'•':.. '■■'■■■'- Fritz Grobba at Work. ■ That was in 1937. Since then Dr. Grobba has been busy spreading tha Nazi influence not only in: Irak but also in the neighbouring State of Ivan. German Ministers in foreign capitals have been of that energetic, pushing. type long before the.Nazi regime of the Third Reich blossomed out into a new menace. Yon Papen, now Reich, representative at Ankara, the capital of Turkey, Irak's neighbour •to tha north, was notoriously active as German Ambassador at Washington irt the days of the Great War. However that may be, Grobba seems to have created a.nest of trouble in Irak, which may have repercussions in the neighbouring States, of Syria,.Turkey, and Iran. In Rashid Aly he has found a tool who takes his instructions from Berlin .and who is now trying to oust the British Imperial Force, probably from India, which recently landed at: Basra and marched up to Habbania, a key > aerodrome on the Euphrates, where it comes near the Tigris, west of Bagdad. The Iraki artillery is reported to have been shelling the aerodrome at Habbania and the British Imperial Force . is said to be taking appropriate action.

Future Developments.

There the matter lies for the moment, with developments possible in the near future. The danger to the Allied cause may be seen ; from a glance at the map. Between Turkey, threatened on her European frontier by the German army in the Balkans and by the process of occupation of Greek islands fringing the Turkish Aegean coast, and Palestine, the nearest Allied territory, lies Vichy Syria (potentially hostile), which, as mentioned, is a neighbour of Irak. The Irak movement is a threat to Turkey and through Turkey to Russia. It is also liable to cause a dispersion of British Imperial forces from the main job of clearing North. Africa of the Axis. For the moment Rashid Aly's unpatriotic action, contrary to the desires and interests of the Iraki people, who had subscribed to the common Arab cause Jagainst the Axis, may have only a nuisance value to the Axis, but the war has already shown what nuisance values may lead to. Italy's intervention ,in the war was the greatest nuisance created for Britain, and it still remains a nuisance. German intervention in ;the Balkans created another nuisance .with serious effects on bur African campaigns! It seems clear that until these nuisances are. settled by powerful independent action of the nations most clearly concerned, ~' notably.? Russia arid Turk ey, Britain's task, with limited - resources on the spot, will remain difficult. After all, the vital struggle lies in the Atlantic, and here the help of America'is coming to hand andshould have decisive results. : Once they are attained, it will be easier to deal with Hitler's moves elsewhere -in the chessboard of the world war; ■--; v^